• IP addresses are NOT logged in this forum so there's no point asking. Please note that this forum is full of homophobes, racists, lunatics, schizophrenics & absolute nut jobs with a smattering of geniuses, Chinese chauvinists, Moderate Muslims and last but not least a couple of "know-it-alls" constantly sprouting their dubious wisdom. If you believe that content generated by unsavory characters might cause you offense PLEASE LEAVE NOW! Sammyboy Admin and Staff are not responsible for your hurt feelings should you choose to read any of the content here.

    The OTHER forum is HERE so please stop asking.

Speak Dialects, you feel tribal ! Speak mandarin, it will break unity!

i buay song with wat is your problem issit? so now i buay song with you ..how

why buay song with me? i am not the one that make the rule. u buay song that mandarin is use in school, take it to Lee Kuan Yew or Hu Jin Tao then.
 
Last edited:
One example of famous classic poetry by Late Tang Emperor Li Yu 李昱:
问君能有几多愁
恰似一江春水向东流

Recite in Mandarin:
wen jun neng you ji duo chou
qia si yi jiang chun shui xiang tong liu

Recite in Cantonese:
man guan nang yau ge do chau
che qi yat gong chuon shuoi hiong tong lau

Notice that the verses rhyme in Cantonese, but not in Mandarin.

kinda agree wif u on sum of dose chinese poems ...

李昱's poems do rhyme nicely sumtimes if read in cantonese ... mayb iz bcos he spent most of his life in ze southern part of china n dat had influenced him ...

but if u read sotong ball's :p poems in cantonese, dey dun rhyme ... dunno watz his dialect ...
 
Deh, tiko russian monk,

i said already;the written characters did not change since the time of confucius. Qin shi Huang only dictate that the small seal script should be used universally over other scripts. so by the tang dynasty, the same characters would have been in use for at least two thousand years. only the sounds have changed (and many times over)

and anyone who can read the modern simplified PRC script will be able to read to traditional script. the problem is when you are asked to write in the traditional script. so pls try.

the ancients during confucius time spoke old chinese. Mandarin came about only in the 1600s during the manchu qing dynasty which was about three thousand years later. the theory is that the hokkien and possibly teochew dialect preserves and retains most of the sounds of old chinese but this is still WIP. however, we can safely assume that any dialect today will be more closely relate to old (and middle) chinese than mandarin.

but, there is evidence even among the ancients from the time of the zhou dynasty, there were different spoken dialects and that old chinese was a lingua franca then but it was only one of many spoken languages of some of the peoples of the central plains. therefore, you also have the wu dialect spoken by the people of zhejiang and shanghai and other regional dialects in far flung places like gan su

by the tang dynasty, old chinese was extinct. the spoken tongue then was middle chinese and this approximates to our modern day cantonese. so you should try reading tang poetry in cantonese or go download some of these from hong kong sites.

tang poetry still sounds ok in mandarin (but better in cantonese) because of the promximity in time but when you try reading confucius' 3000 year-old shijing in mandarin, it is totally off.

all southern dialects are chinese because china's history after the han dynasty is often riddled with episodes of exodus from the north by chinese people running away from wars. these people brought the soounds of now extinct chinese languages to the south and the descendants continue to use this today as dialects. northern dialects and languages like mandarin tends to closer to the languages of altaic peoples who conquered and settled in northern china at different times. these include the manchus, the mongols, the xianbei, the huns and also the Di. you can also count the Turks.

in the 1700s, an ah tiong official (from Beijing) visiting Taiwan had this to report:

In this place, the language is as birdcall – totally unintelligible! For example: for the surname Liú, they say "Lâu"; for Chén, "Tân"; Zhuāng, "Chng"; and Zhāng is "Tioⁿ". My deputy's surname Wú becomes "Ngô͘". My surname Huáng does not even have a proper vowel: it is "N̂g" here! It is difficult to make sense of this. (郡中鴃舌鳥語全不可曉如劉呼澇陳呼澹莊呼曾張呼丟余與吳待御兩姓吳呼作襖黃則無音厄影切更為難省)

– Records from the mission to Taiwan and its Strait, Volume II: On the area around Fort Provintia, Tainan (臺海使槎錄 卷二 赤嵌筆談)

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Minnan
 
One example of famous classic poetry by Late Tang Emperor Li Yu 李昱:
问君能有几多愁
恰似一江春水向东流

Recite in Mandarin:
wen jun neng you ji duo chou
qia si yi jiang chun shui xiang tong liu

Recite in Cantonese:
man guan nang yau ge do chau
che qi yat gong chuon shuoi hiong tong lau

Notice that the verses rhyme in Cantonese, but not in Mandarin.




i dun speak canto and why the fug should i? It's not my dialect.


Anyway have u watched any movies showing ancient china? Say red cliff for eg. With the exception of movies made in hk they all show the characters speaking in mandarin.


What i mean to say is if the dialects show close proximity to how the ancients spoke wouldn't it be more appropriate to have them speak in a dialect rather than mandarin.

Btw when they speak in mandarin sounds okay what. All the movies from crouching tiger, red cliff shown in ancient times they sound pretty okay to me when they speak mandarin.
 
in the 1700s, an ah tiong official (from Beijing) visiting Taiwan had this to report:

In this place, the language is as birdcall – totally unintelligible! For example: for the surname Liú, they say "Lâu"; for Chén, "Tân"; Zhuāng, "Chng"; and Zhāng is "Tioⁿ". My deputy's surname Wú becomes "Ngô͘". My surname Huáng does not even have a proper vowel: it is "N̂g" here! It is difficult to make sense of this. (郡中鴃舌鳥語全不可曉如劉呼澇陳呼澹莊呼曾張呼丟余與吳待御兩姓吳呼作襖黃則無音厄影切更為難省)

– Records from the mission to Taiwan and its Strait, Volume II: On the area around Fort Provintia, Tainan (臺海使槎錄 卷二 赤嵌筆談)

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Minnan




This ah tiong official spoke mandarin?


So what u are implying is that despite taiwanese hokkien or min dialect being closer to middle chinese or being more chinese than mandarin it sounded like bird call???


Hence mandarin despite being more different from what the ancients spoke compared to say cantonese or teochew is regarded as, how should i put it, the language of china and the dialects regarded as birdcall.
 
can we say the same on Sporeans, especially the new generation? thats, the grave mistake of Lee Kuan Yew and PAP: they took away Sporeans' mother tongue.
LKY and his gang has robbed all chinese singaporeans here of an identity...:oIo::oIo:
 
Deh, tiko russian monk,

i said already;the written characters did not change since the time of confucius. Qin shi Huang only dictate that the small seal script should be used universally over other scripts. so by the tang dynasty, the same characters would have been in use for at least two thousand years. only the sounds have changed (and many times over)

and anyone who can read the modern simplified PRC script will be able to read to traditional script. the problem is when you are asked to write in the traditional script. so pls try.

the ancients during confucius time spoke old chinese. Mandarin came about only in the 1600s during the manchu qing dynasty which was about three thousand years later. the theory is that the hokkien and possibly teochew dialect preserves and retains most of the sounds of old chinese but this is still WIP. however, we can safely assume that any dialect today will be more closely relate to old (and middle) chinese than mandarin.

but, there is evidence even among the ancients from the time of the zhou dynasty, there were different spoken dialects and that old chinese was a lingua franca then but it was only one of many spoken languages of some of the peoples of the central plains. therefore, you also have the wu dialect spoken by the people of zhejiang and shanghai and other regional dialects in far flung places like gan su

by the tang dynasty, old chinese was extinct. the spoken tongue then was middle chinese and this approximates to our modern day cantonese. so you should try reading tang poetry in cantonese or go download some of these from hong kong sites.

tang poetry still sounds ok in mandarin (but better in cantonese) because of the promximity in time but when you try reading confucius' 3000 year-old shijing in mandarin, it is totally off.

all southern dialects are chinese because china's history after the han dynasty is often riddled with episodes of exodus from the north by chinese people running away from wars. these people brought the soounds of now extinct chinese languages to the south and the descendants continue to use this today as dialects. northern dialects and languages like mandarin tends to closer to the languages of altaic peoples who conquered and settled in northern china at different times. these include the manchus, the mongols, the xianbei, the huns and also the Di. you can also count the Turks.



why u call me tiko russian monk???

What talking you? argue with devil within until u dunno what ur saying?



actually mandarin sounds higher classed compared to say the dialects. Many many ppl have this impression.

Hence when they call someone a hokkien peng it denotes someone of low class, low education.

In fact in sg those with very little education tend to speak hokkien.



Btw why is cantonese always the dialect used that rhymes better when reading those old poems? Why not say hakka or hainanese????
 
The speech convention for theatre and film in China is that everyone except perhaps imbeciles speaks 'standard' Mandarin (never mind the character is from Guangxi or Hebei). At the very most, the character would start with a few words of dialect to establish the origin and then proceed to speak in 'standard' Mandarin.

There has been some variations to this convention lately (esp with new wave directors) but by and large it remains.

i dun speak canto and why the fug should i? It's not my dialect.


Anyway have u watched any movies showing ancient china? Say red cliff for eg. With the exception of movies made in hk they all show the characters speaking in mandarin.


What i mean to say is if the dialects show close proximity to how the ancients spoke wouldn't it be more appropriate to have them speak in a dialect rather than mandarin.

Btw when they speak in mandarin sounds okay what. All the movies from crouching tiger, red cliff shown in ancient times they sound pretty okay to me when they speak mandarin.
 
the issue here is with LKY and PAP, they are eradicating dialect here in this country.

that doesn't mean that mandarin is lousy as a unifying spoken language for different chinese dialect group to communicate with each other.

a movie just base on one two authentic dialect, might work. just like the movie by mel gibson, apocalypto, set in central america, and the character in the movie use Yucatec Maya dialogue, and is accompanied by subtitles. but thats the director's preference.

would a chinese ancient war movie spoken with only authentic dialect, would it help the box office?
 
Last edited:
Btw why is cantonese always the dialect used that rhymes better when reading those old poems? Why not say hakka or hainanese????

That is because Cantonese comes with 7 tones. Mandarin for example only have 4, that is why Cantonese sound better.
 
The speech convention for theatre and film in China is that everyone except perhaps imbeciles speaks 'standard' Mandarin (never mind the character is from Guangxi or Hebei). At the very most, the character would start with a few words of dialect to establish the origin and then proceed to speak in 'standard' Mandarin.

There has been some variations to this convention lately (esp with new wave directors) but by and large it remains.




This would never have happened in hollywood movie unless the actor is portraying a character from another part of the world.

WHat i mean is if it's a british actor he would speak in a british accent unless he was acting as an american in which case he would change his accent to speak as an american. Brad pitt acted as some sort of gypsy and spoke in some low class british accent in lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels.


That's what i admire about these western film makers. They prefer to make things authentic. if only there was a chinese mel gibson. He created 2 films about 2 ancient and different cultures and made them speak their language as authentically as possible. He created passion of the christ and they spoke aramic and i doubt most ppl can even differeniate between hebrew and that language and apcoloypto where they spoke mayan, i mean they were uttering gibberish, i doubt even the modern indians in mexico can speak mayan and who cares what they think anyway but yet mel gibson still did it to make it authentic.

Yet these directors i guess to please the communist party has to get these ancient characters in chinese period dramas to speak standard mandarin with maybe an odd character that speaks standard mandarin in a different accent. :mad:
 
That is because Cantonese comes with 7 tones. Mandarin for example only have 4, that is why Cantonese sound better.

Then hakka or hainaese neh?????????



I know the 4 tones in mandarin cos we learnt that when we were being taught hanyu pinyin, i asked my canot fren about the 7 tones. He also dunno how to explain.


The best would be to get 7 words that are prononuced the same way in canto but just difference in tone.

I can do this in mandarin.

The number 4 is 4th tone, death in mandarin is in 3rd tone. DUnno any words for 1st and 2nd.
 
This would never have happened in hollywood movie unless the actor is portraying a character from another part of the world.

WHat i mean is if it's a british actor he would speak in a british accent unless he was acting as an american in which case he would change his accent to speak as an american. Brad pitt acted as some sort of gypsy and spoke in some low class british accent in lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels.


That's what i admire about these western film makers. They prefer to make things authentic. if only there was a chinese mel gibson. He created 2 films about 2 ancient and different cultures and made them speak their language as authentically as possible. He created passion of the christ and they spoke aramic and i doubt most ppl can even differeniate between hebrew and that language and apcoloypto where they spoke mayan, i mean they were uttering gibberish, i doubt even the modern indians in mexico can speak mayan and who cares what they think anyway but yet mel gibson still did it to make it authentic.

Yet these directors i guess to please the communist party has to get these ancient characters in chinese period dramas to speak standard mandarin with maybe an odd character that speaks standard mandarin in a different accent. :mad:

there's a taiwanese movie, the puppet master. many of the dialogue in it is in hokkien. there are some expletives in it. just a little. and guess what? spore film board, classify the movie as restricted artistic. 'cause of the dialect use or maybe the expletives. a few knnbccb uttered by the characters. thats how STRAIGHT and SQUARE those gahmen people.
 
Last edited:
there's a taiwanese movie, the puppet master. many of the dialogue in it is in hokkien. there are some expletives in it. just a little. and guess what? spore film board, classify the movie as restricted artistic. thats how STRAIGHT and SQUARE those gahmen people.



Cannot show hokkien movie mah unless it is jack neo's crap. Wait all the pai kia watch it. I think our elite students also dun understand only the low class hokkien peng can understand and i guess it's a low class film cos hokkien is low class. :rolleyes:


if it was say a british film about the low class gypsies and cockney type of ppl would the film board restrict it? Of course not. Cos low class ang moh still = high class in sinkeeland.
 
Then hakka or hainaese neh?????????



I know the 4 tones in mandarin cos we learnt that when we were being taught hanyu pinyin, i asked my canot fren about the 7 tones. He also dunno how to explain.


The best would be to get 7 words that are prononuced the same way in canto but just difference in tone.

I can do this in mandarin.

The number 4 is 4th tone, death in mandarin is in 3rd tone. DUnno any words for 1st and 2nd.


You want to know, you have to go for a tour in Guang Dong. The Tour Guide will enlighten you.
 
Cannot show hokkien movie mah unless it is jack neo's crap. Wait all the pai kia watch it. I think our elite students also dun understand only the low class hokkien peng can understand and i guess it's a low class film cos hokkien is low class. :rolleyes:


if it was say a british film about the low class gypsies and cockney type of ppl would the film board restrict it? Of course not. Cos low class ang moh still = high class in sinkeeland.

eh... not a low class movie hor. the movie had won quite a number of awards. but then hor, those PAP, gahmen people, they cannot tahan dialect movie. a little bit of knnccb uttered, or dialect dialogues straightaway they slap a Restricted label onto the movie.

<small>Awards for
</small>Xi meng ren sheng (1993) More at IMDbPro »



<!-- begin TOP_RHS --> <script type="text/javascript"> ad_utils.ad_queue.push({tile:'4',slot:'top_rhs'}); </script> <iframe src="http://www.imdb.com/images/a/ifb/doubleclick/expand.html#imdb2.consumer.title/awards;tile=4;sz=160x600,171x600,11x1;p=tr;coo=tw;g=dr;g=bi;tt=f;id=tt0107157;ord=%5BCLIENT_SIDE_ORD%5D?" id="top_rhs" name="top_rhs" class="yesScript" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" allowtransparency="true" onload="ad_utils.resize_iframe(this)" scrolling="no" width="0" frameborder="0" height="0"></iframe> <noscript></noscript>
<!-- End TOP_RHS --> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107157/awards

<table style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td colspan="4" valign="top" align="center" bgcolor="#ffffdb"> <big>Cannes Film Festival</big></td></tr> <tr><th>Year</th><th>Result</th><th>Award</th><th>Category/Recipient(s)</th></tr> <tr><td rowspan="2" valign="center" align="center"> 1993 </td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Won</td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Jury Prize</td> <td valign="top">
Hsiao-hsien Hou
<small>
</small> </td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Nominated</td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Golden Palm</td> <td valign="top">
Hsiao-hsien Hou
<small>
</small> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="4"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="4" valign="top" align="center" bgcolor="#ffffdb"> <big>Flanders International Film Festival</big></td></tr> <tr><th>Year</th><th>Result</th><th>Award</th><th>Category/Recipient(s)</th></tr> <tr><td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center"> 1993 </td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Won</td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Georges Delerue Prize</td> <td valign="top">
Ming Chang Chen
Hongda Zhang
<small>
</small> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="4"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="4" valign="top" align="center" bgcolor="#ffffdb"> <big>Fribourg International Film Festival</big></td></tr> <tr><th>Year</th><th>Result</th><th>Award</th><th>Category/Recipient(s)</th></tr> <tr><td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center"> 1994 </td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Won</td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Distribution Help Award</td> <td valign="top">
Hsiao-hsien Hou
<small>Tied with Kosh ba kosh (1993).
</small> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="4"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="4" valign="top" align="center" bgcolor="#ffffdb"> <big>Golden Horse Film Festival</big></td></tr> <tr><th>Year</th><th>Result</th><th>Award</th><th>Category/Recipient(s)</th></tr> <tr><td rowspan="3" valign="center" align="center"> 1993 </td> <td rowspan="3" valign="center" align="center">Won</td> <td rowspan="3" valign="center" align="center">Golden Horse Award</td> <td valign="top"> Best Cinematography
Pin Bing Lee
<small>
</small> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"> Best Costume Design
Peiyun Ruan
Guanghui Zhang
<small>
</small> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"> Best Sound Effects
Du-Che Tu
<small>
</small> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="4"> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="4" valign="top" align="center" bgcolor="#ffffdb"> <big>Istanbul International Film Festival</big></td></tr> <tr><th>Year</th><th>Result</th><th>Award</th><th>Category/Recipient(s)</th></tr> <tr><td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center"> 1994 </td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">Won</td> <td rowspan="1" valign="center" align="center">FIPRESCI Prize</td> <td valign="top"> International Competition
Hsiao-hsien Hou
<small>
</small> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="4"> </td></tr></tbody></table>
 
okay, so despot LKY is against dialect. so how come during GE, the PAP candidate use dialect?? bunch of hypocrites these PAP.

 
Back
Top